“THE VRRA OFFERS A VERY UN-INTIMIDATING WAY TO ENTER INTO RACING WITH THIS ENDURANCE SERIES”
Three nights before the VRRA endurance race at Calabogie, Alan Burns texted me a photo of a bike with no wheels and no tank or bodywork. I thought he bought another race bike but, no, it was the actual Yamaha R3 we were racing later in the week. He just installed his Superbike engine (is there such a thing when it’s 321 cc?) and was pretty excited. “It’s alive and tomorrow I’ll do dyno runs” he texted.
We were racing in the four-round Vintage Road Racing Association (VRRA) Endurance series. Four Fridays of two-hour endurance races. Two years ago, Alan invited me to join him in this series on his Yamaha R3. The 2020 series was pretty much a Covid write-off but, in 2021, we were able to race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP) and Shannonville Motorsport Park, both in Ontario, and we actually won in the Modern Lightweight category. I was surprised at how well we did, especially against a lot of Kawasaki 400s and excellent riders, but sometimes there are awards for good attendance!
Team Background
Back when I was racing, my other hobby on the weekend was teaching motorcycle courses. Alan, myself and three other instructors had a great time racing in Amateur 600 at the Canadian Nationals or club level races at various tracks. We called ourselves Team Shoulder Check. Very fitting, because we couldn’t shake the safe street habit of shoulder-checking even when
